How Are You Called? A Homily for the Baptism of Our Lord

Preached on Sunday, 12 January, 2025, at All Saints, Collingwood, and St Luke’s, Creemore, Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

  Readings for the day:  Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 

And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

My most treasured memory from this Christmas will always be a handmade card from Joy’s oldest granddaughter.   In the card she had written “Dear grandpa, I love it when I get to see you I could not wish for another grandpa”,  and when I read it, the room got quite dusty for a moment.  I got teary because I’m not actually her grandfather.  Her maternal grandfather has been dead for many years, and I was always just happy to be called Mike, out of respect to his memory.  However, this year she evidently decided to call me her grandpa, which means more to me than any of my academic or professional titles.

This experience led me to reflect on how we find our truest identities in our deepest and closest relationships.   We may be or have been a banker or lawyer, a teacher or beautician, but, if we are fortunate, we can say that at the core of our identities we are a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a son or daughter.  It often seems to me that those who do well at retirement thrive because they can let go of their professional identities and find their true selves in their most intimate, familial identities.

Today in the life of the church, the Sunday after Epiphany, is often called the Baptism of Our Lord, but I think it could just as easily be called the Identity of our Lord.  Epiphany is that season after Christmas where we learn through Jesus’ words and deeds that the babe of Bethlehem truly is the Messiah, the Saviour.  Today we learn that the Magi were right to honour this child, whose royal identity is now confirmed by the voice from heaven in today’s gospel, for at his baptism, Jesus is proclaimed God’s beloved Son.  And the good news for us is that we receive this same baptism, confirming our identities as children of God, as brothers and sisters of our Lord.

To see how all this works, let’s start with John the Baptist.  We met John in Advent in this same place, Luke 3, and he was saying the same thing, that the one greater than him was coming.  "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming” (Lk 3   ) John had called people to repent and change their ways, and his water of baptism was essentially a common and ancient Jewish practice, ritual washing (mikveh) to be repeated as necessary.  

John is clear that Jesus is offering something different: “he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”.   Fire in the scriptures is destructive but it’s also transformative, like the refiner’s fire that the prophet Malachi mentions (Mal 3.2-3).   The Holy Spirit is likewise transformative.   The Holy Spirit has been at work constantly so far in Luke’s gospel.  

Holy Spirit comes to Mary and allows her to conceive (Lk 1.35); Holy Spirit comes to Elizabeth and allows her and her unborn son to see that the child Mary is carrying is the Lord (Lk 1.41).  Holy Spirit allows old Zechariah to prophesy that his son John will be the “prophet of the most high” (Lk 1.67).  And Holy Spirit comes to aged, patient Simeon and allows him to see in Mary’s child who will save all the nations (Lk 2.25-26).  

Suffice it to say that two chapters into his gospel and Luke has established the Holy Spirit as a big deal, as the power of God that makes the impossible possible, and which allows the faithful to see what God is doing around them.   This same power is now given to Jesus in the baptism that he offers.   And what is the purpose of this new baptism?  

John offers a clue in his metaphor of separating the wheat from the chaff.   The winnowing fork allows the grain to fall to the floor and the chaff to be scattered by the wind.  The grain is then gathered for the harvest.  The word gathering is huge.  The prophets promise that the Messiah will gather the scattered people of God (Is 11.17, Ez 11.17), and Jesus identifies himself as the shepherd who will gather the lost sheep together (Lk 15.3-7, Mt 18.12-14).  John thus hints that Jesus’ baptism is part of his mission to gather the lost and the loved and to bring them into the family of God.

As I said at the beginning, what happens in today’s gospel isn’t so much the baptism of Jesus (that does happen but is not described) as it is the calling or naming of Jesus.   The heavens open, the Holy Spirit comes down on Jesus (for the first time in Luke HS is described physically, appearing like a dove), and the voice from heaven announces that Jesus is "my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  This voice confirms what was said earlier (Gabriel told Mary that her son “will be called the Son of the Most High” Lk 1.32-33), so in part this episode is about confirming Jesus authority, but it’s also about placing Jesus within the particular familial identity that we call the Trinity.

While he doesn’t use the word Trinity, Luke here brings the entire family of God together: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all working together and bound up in a relation to God.   And, what’s remarkable and wonderful for us, is that this is a family that we humans are part of.  Continuing from where our gospel reading leaves off, Luke then gives us the ancestry of Jesus through Joseph’s lineage.   We get a list of seventy-six generations, taking us through such notable figures as David, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, and Noah, until finally we come to Adam, who is described as “the son of God” (Lk 3.38).

I think Luke’s point here is simple and wonderful.   By bringing us back to Adam, Luke is saying that if Adam was God’s son by creation, linking us all to God by our common ancestry, something new is now happening.  Jesus, created in human form by divine action, is the new Adam, the new son of God, and Jesus has the power the bring us into a new relationship with God, a relationship untroubled by the sin of the original Adam and his human descendants.

Jesus’ baptism, and every one since then done in Jesus’ name, brings heaven and earth together.   Regardless of the age of the person being baptized, the same thing happens: we are named by our earthly name, but we are also proclaimed by our heavenly name, each of us a child of God, each of us beloved, all of us included brought into God’s family.   

I know that for some of us, the word “family” does not have positive associations.   Some of us come from loveless, dysfunctional, and broken families, and if that has been your experience, then I encourage you to lean into those words, “this is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”.   Imagine God speaking these words to you in love.  Imagine Jesus greeting you warmly as brother or as sister.   What a wonderful and helpful antidote to the idea that God is distant and remote.  And, if you haven’t yet been baptized, perhaps this way of thinking about baptism as the place where we find our calling as children of God would encourage to consider baptism.

Let me finish by addressing an elephant in the room, the dwindling of baptism in our church.   It’s true that our font has scarcely been used in the time I’ve been here.  What was once the norm, infant baptism or christening, is now the exception as young adults have detached from faith.   Perhaps we need to think about adult baptism as the new norm, and gearing our messages and our outreach to adults and young adults who increasingly find themselves alone and alienated.

Writing in the Atlantic Magazine today, Derek Thompson says that we live in the “anti-social century”, when face to face relationships are collapsing among all ages, demographics, and ethnicities.  The result, says Thompson, is that more and more people live in isolation, and live in “fear, anxiety, and reclusion”.   Once we as church tried to reach the lost by offering Jesus as the cure for sin, but what if instead we offered Jesus as the cure for loneliness?  What if we leaned into the idea that baptism was about God calling us out of our loneliness and into God’s family, as God being eager, even desperate, to say to each lonely soul, you are my beloved child, and you’re not alone.  I think this is messaging that the church needs to pursue in the midst of this loneliness epidemic.

My heart sang when a young girl found the love to call me grandpa.  How many more lonely hearts out there would sing and soar to hear that they are God’s beloved child?

Good News! A Homily for Christmas Eve

Preached at Good Shepherd, Stayner, and All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Christmas Eve, 2024.

Readings for Christmas Eve: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20 

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: (Lk 2.10)

One of the great ironies of life in our so-called information age is that we are deluged with news.   Our phones are constantly pinging and notifying us of breaking events.  We have dozens of 24 hour cable news stations to chose from.   We can read newspapers on our tablets, download podcasts, and listen to news in our cars.  In the year of Our Lord 2024, news comes at us like water from a firehose.    And yet the great irony of our age is we’ve never distrusted the news more.

We’ve gotten used to phrases like “fake news" and “alternative facts”.  We’re told that the media, at least the media we dislike, our “enemies of the people”.   We chose the news that we like and trust, from sources that confirm our worldviews and stoke our biases.    We share memes and gotcha stories with our like minded friends.   News has made us tribal, suspicious, and cynical.  If news was water, then we are like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, with “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink”.

Tonight, on Christmas Eve, we hear the words of the angel to the shepherds, “I am bringing you news of great joy for all the people”.   The word angel means messenger, and while the angel’s appearance is terrifying, as all heavenly messengers are in scripture, there is nothing for us to fear.    This angel brings good news, the best news, joyful news, and it’s not just for a few.  This is not news for one tribe, it’s not blue news or red news, it’s for “all the people”.   

This is news for everyone, no exceptions, and it’s very simple.  Go to Bethlehem.  Find a baby who’s been newly born in great poverty, lying in a manger, an animal’s trough, and believe that this baby is the saviour that God long promised to send.  That’s it.  There’s no spin, no expert analysis, just a promise that this news will be a promise of peace and will reflect the glory of God.  There’s nothing in this news that arouses suspicions or hatreds, nothing to denigrate any one group or minority.  

I can’t prove to you that this actually happened.   All I can say to you is that the news of the angel has echoed down through the centuries, repeated by countless generations this very night.  It is news that has been passed down by people who long for something more than hatred and fear and suspicion, people who long for one great truth, that we are loved and that we are not alone.

So tonight I want you to ask you this.  Can you accept that there can be good news for everyone?    Is it good news for you that God’s peace should end our hostilities and divisions?   Is it good news for you that God became human and lived among us because God loves you?  For my friends, if this is good news for you, then you should do as the shepherds did.  Go.  Find Jesus.  Find out what he wants you to do.  Love him and be loved in return.   Share that love with others.

“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”

Elizabeth's Blessing: A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 22 December, 2024, the Fourth Sunday of Advent.  

Texts for Advent 4C: Micah 5:2-5A; Canticle 18 (Luke 1:47-55) OR Psalm 80:1-7; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.  (Lk 1:45)

The first chapter of Luke’s gospel is one packed full of wondrous events - comings and goings, visits and announcements.  Some of these visits and announcements are awe inspiring and momentous - the angel Gabriel coming to Zechariah and Mary with news of unbelievable pregnancies and children that will change the world.    In contrast, the third visit, that of Mary to her kinswoman Elizabeth in today’s gospel, may seem homey and ordinary, a young woman dropping in on an aunt or early cousin, but in their own ways, what these two women say to one another is just as powerful as the angel Gabriel’s words.   

Today I want to focus on Mary and Elizabeth as people of faith who trust that God will deliver on his promises.   Mary and Elizabeth can inspire us to hear with fresh ears the good news we hear every Christmas, that God comes into our human world with love and justice to save the world that God loves.  Mary and Elizabeth can inspire us to show Christ anew to the world through our own lived faith and actions.

First let’s consider the reasons why Mary would want to seek out her relative Elizabeth.   The trip between Mary’s house in Nazareth of Galilee and Elizabeth’s house in the hills near Jerusalem (today known as Ein Karem) was about one hundred kilometres, so not an inconsiderable journey for a young woman, whether  on foot or maybe by donkey.    We can guess at the reasons.    Mary has recently learned from the angel Gabriel that she has miraculously conceived a child who “will be holy, who will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1.35).  Even though she receives this news calmly (“let it be with me according to your word” Lk 1.38), we can imagine that her life has now been thrown into disarray.

We can imagine that one reason she would want to get away is because of what others would perceive as a scandalous pregnancy.    Matthew’s gospel has the account of Gabriel visiting Mary’s betrothed Joseph to allay his fears about the pregnancy (Mt 1:18-25), and presumably this has already happened.    It’s also six months since her relative Elizabeth has miraculously become pregnant, and that news would have travelled, so we can imagine Mary wanting to take refuge with an older relation who would understand her situation.  And what Elizabeth will understand is that God is up to something wonderful, because when she conceived at her old age, Elizabeth said that “This is what the Lord has done for me” (Lk 1.25).   And so Mary goes to be with the one person who will understand what God is doing.

The scene where Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s house is one of the loveliest in all of scripture.    Sometimes in the gospels we get these rare and lovely domestic vignettes of private homes where real people come together in love and friendship, surrounded by God’s grace.   The home of Lazarus and his sisters, a refuge for Jesus and his friends, is one such place.   Elizabeth’s home in the hills above Jerusalem is another.  We can imagine a cozy, domestic scene and a joyous welcome as Mary arrives, but it’s also a scene full of God’s activity, for the child leaping in Elizabeth’s womb will be John the Baptist, who here in utero is already beginning his vocation of announcing the coming of Christ.  And there is Elizabeth, not just an incongruously pregnant old lady but also the wife of a priest, Zechariah, and herself a person of deep faith and belief that God would keep his promises to his people.

I think it’s worth taking a minute to consider the context here and what it is these people want and hope for - the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel who will be sent by God.  Elizabeth and Mary are people who live under occupation.   As faithful Jews, they know the stories about how God freed his people from slavery in Egypt and in Babylon.   The remember their great kings, David and Solomon, and they know it’s been centuries since a Jewish king has sat on David’s throne.  They have faith that God will send another David, some mighty king, to rescue them.  Mary has already leaned into that faith when she said yes to Gabriel.  And now Elizabeth recognizes that faith in her young cousin, for what she says to Mary is significant: “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”  (Lk 1:45).

And what does Mary believe?  We see her faith laid out in what has become known as the Magnificat, perhaps the greatest hymn of longing for deliverance in all of scripture.  In her song, she expresses her faith that God will look kindly on those the world deems to be of no account (“he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant”).  She praises the faithfulness of God, who is with us “from generation to generation … according to the promise he made to our ancestors”.  She points to the mighty power of God that will sweep away the Emperor in Rome who will soon decree that all the world will be taxed (Lk 2.1).   And Mary declares that in a world where only a few can feast, God will bring food and wellbeing to the hungry.

It’s remarkable that the Song of Mary has become so spiritualized, so set apart in gorgeous musical settings in liturgy, that we somehow don’t think about it as applying to the real world, but isn’t the real world where God in Christ Jesus is born?  It is the same world where people still chafe under dictatorships and would-be emperors, where we see a handful of mighty oligarchs and tech billionaires feasting while millions go hungry.  Even though faith in God and God’s promises has dwindled, there is still a desire, especially at Christmas, for some better reality to appear, even briefly.   

Last night, a few of us were handing out hot chocolate at the Christmas market, we told folks that it was free but that donations would go towards our food ministry, because our church feeds a lot of people.  That was always well received and made people want to open their wallets.    At some primal level, even in what some call the post-Christian world, people still want the hungry to be filled with good things.  

And you, dear saints, this Christmas, what do you do want?  What do you hope for?  Would Elizabeth say of you that we are blessed for believing that God would make good on God’s promises?   Should the poor and lowly have dignity and value?  Should the hungry be filled with good things?  Should we trust in God’s power rather than worship those who chase earthly power?  Dare we believe that God is faithful to God’s ancient promises?

If you can say yes to these things, and if you can even try to do these things, than surely you are blessed.   And, dear saints, if you feel that you cannot come to believe these things, then ask for the faith to believe, for as Advent has taught us, the Lord is near.  Indeed, the Lord may be closer than you think, for with every act of hospitality, with every word of encouragement, with every kindness to the poor and lonely, and with every beat of a thankful heart and every prayer of praise, you have been faithful to the vision of God's kingdom that Mary described in her great song.  

The Lord is near.  Our Advent journey is nearly over.  Once again we've heard the promises of God, that he would save us.   And now Jesus stirs, waiting to be born in Bethlehem, waiting to be born anew in the hope and life and actions of each faithful believer, for as the poet Rumi once said, each of us has a Christ within.   Just as Mary bore Christ because she believed in God's promises, so we can show Christ to the world by living out our own faith.   My prayer for us this Christmas is that we, like Mary, dare to believe in God's promises, for as old Elizabeth told Mary, blessed are those that dare to believe.